Zimbabwe expects higher economic growth of 3.7 per cent this year, from an initial projection of 1.7 per cent following a better than expected agriculture season, the finance minister said on Friday.
The nation’s economy stagnated last year following a devastating drought while its budget deficit exploded as President Robert Mugabe’s administration struggled to pay workers which helped fan anti-government protests.
Patrick Chinamasa told military officers at the Zimbabwe Staff College in the capital that agriculture would spur higher economic growth, with grain deliveries expected at three million tonnes, the highest since 1984, according to official data.
“I anticipate after the revision, our growth to be around 3.7 per cent from 1.7 per cent or so that we had anticipated in the 2017 national budget,” Chinamasa said.
Zimbabwe has received above normal rainfall during the 2016/17 agriculture season, following an El Nino-induced drought the year before that scorched crops and left more than four million people in need of food aid. (Reuters/NAN)
